No Mystery About Reading Help

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Kids Need To Get `It' Early On

August 13, 2002|By Myriam Marquez, Sentinel Columnist

Little Linda can't read very well. Juan can't either. Yet both are about to enter the fifth grade in Florida.

Not to worry. They'll eventually get "it," many public-school educators seem to believe. Trust us, the principals and teachers say. Give our kids another shot and promote them to the next grade, many of the parents plead.

Let's not hurt the tykes' feelings, the chorus goes.

Onward marches mediocrity -- for the sake of the children's feelings.

Even though Florida law was supposed to end social promotion, school districts have used a loophole in the law to allow kids to go into the next grade. That would be a swell idea if the kids actually "got it" and received after-school tutoring, extra reading instruction during school and summer school to help them catch up with their peers.

That hasn't happened here. Summer school was cut for most kids who need it the most. I know, because a bright and precocious child I was mentoring in reading at one public school this past year had nowhere to go this summer to improve her reading. Her parents couldn't afford private tutors, and her elementary school didn't offer any classes for children testing below average in reading.

Why? The Legislature didn't provide enough money. Instead, the governor and GOP-controlled Legislature cut billions of dollars in taxes -- the bulk going to big business -- during the past four years. Even this past year, in a stagnant economy with tax revenues down, Gov. Jeb Bush and legislators axed more taxes. Oh, they passed another law to end social promotion, this time in third grade, starting next year. Officials also promised more money for tutoring at low-performing schools for the coming school year. Gosh, might this be an election year?

Volunteer mentors, as Bush himself knows from personal experience, are a wonderful idea, but it takes more than an hour a week to do it right. It takes expertise from teachers trained specifically to spot problem areas. Volunteers can help encourage children to do their best, and spend some time reading with kids, but they can't be expected to fix what ails almost one-third of Florida's third-graders who flunked the FCAT reading test.

It's true that one test shouldn't determine a child's entire future, but there's something to be said for testing as a diagnostic tool. There's plenty of research to show that if a child isn't reading at grade level by third grade, it becomes ever more difficult to catch up. There's no mystery why so many students still can't read well in 10th grade. They were the same ones who should have been given extra help way back when.

"Way back when" isn't in third grade, either. It starts from the time children are in the womb, hearing their parents talk, having mommy or daddy or whomever read to them when they're babies. Middle-class parents know what works, which explains why most failing schools are in poor, urban areas and not in the suburbs.

With so many poor children living in single-parent homes, with mothers who often have to work two jobs to cover their family's expenses, the results are inevitable -- unless we rethink what education in this country should be about.

The crucial time for a child's reading development is in preschool, yet many, if not most, of the children who are failing reading in third or fourth grade never were enrolled in preschool. It's easier to hold back a child in preschool or kindergarten than in the later years. It has become the thing to do for many middle-class parents who want their kids to be "more mature" for first grade, more focused on reading.

You want to see little Linda and Big Juan read without difficulty? Make quality preschool available to all children, rich and poor alike. Otherwise, don't pretend that public education is the great equalizer.